


the evening's dying light

by Russet



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Gen, basically just angsty sigrun, everyone else is really briefly though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 14:58:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4226220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Russet/pseuds/Russet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blood dripped from Sigrun's hands. It wasn't hers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the evening's dying light

**Author's Note:**

> I can feel it in the rotten air tonight  
> In the tips of my fingers, in the skin on my face  
> In the weak last gasp of the evening's dying light...  
> 

Blood dripped from Sigrun's hands. It wasn't hers.

Vaguely, she noted how the red stained her white gloves, mixing with the dirt and dust she never bothered to clean off. Maybe she'd clean it this time. She had always seen her dirty white gloves as a sort of prize, an acknowledgement of the putrid, disgusting things she was forced to dirty her hands with, but she wasn't sure she could stand this new ornament.

In the background, the sun was setting, casting a glow of blood red on the evening sky. Tipping her head backwards, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Poisonous fumes and the smell of rotting flesh filled the air, accompanied by the bitter, distinctive scent of gunpowder, but all she could smell was the faint trace of Tuuri's shampoo, Emil's cologne, the smell of the companions littered at her feet.

They deserved graves, they deserved eulogies and flowers and all that the world could afford to give, but Sigrun couldn't give any of those things. She was just one person, and more trolls and giants would come lurking by once the sun had set completely. She had killed everything within the immediate vicinity with rage in her blood and fire in her eyes, but now that rage and fire gave out into exhaustion and anguish. She had been through this so many times. She was so, so tired. 

The thing about being an experienced troll- and giant-hunter is that, eventually, you realise how inevitable, how  _unavoidable_  death truly is. She had dug graves and thrown flowers and given small, soft prayers that she hoped would make their way somehow to the Gods, but when she returns from each battle with more dead monsters to her name and less companions to celebrate it with, the burden on her shoulders only increases, tempts her to grow bitter and withdrawn and to forget about everything else but the aching gap in her heart.

But she was Sigrun, she was bright and brave and her companions would remember her as such from the land of Tuonela, and so she would remain to be on this wretched wasteland. That would be the graves she would have dug, the flowers she would have thrown, the tear-filled eulogies and the soft, sincere prayers. That was her gift to her friends, her comrades. Sigrun Eide would remain Sigrun Eide, a protector of her people and a leader to look up to, however tempting it was to shove the barrel of a gun against her throat and hear that sweet, blessed bang. 

She knelt down by her comrades' bodies, looked at their motionless limbs and frozen expressions. Kissed sweet, cheerful Tuuri on her forehead, and whispered with reverence how great, how selfless she was. Caressed away the stray hairs from Emil's peaceful, sleeping face, told him that he would never, ever have to be afraid anymore. Closed Lalli's haunting eyes, and thanked him softly for his quiet calm and unquestioning loyalty. Patted Mikkel on his cheek, forced a brave smile for his sake, his stoic, grumpy, all-encompassing heart. Stared sadly at Reynir's final smile, the one that would accompany him forever more, and wiped away the blood that covered his freckles.

Quietly, she poured kerosene over their corpses and lighted a fire, to be safe. She watched their bodies go up in flames, tried to ignore the terrible smell of burning flesh.

In a small, well-worn notebook tucked neatly in the third inner pocket of her coat, she carefully wrote their names in the drying ink of a decade old pen, jamming it between walls of text, countless names of fallen friends. This was one of her only personal possessions, one of the only reasons she had bothered to even learn the alphabet. With this notebook, they were not dead. They would live on, in the monsters that she slayed and the new friends that she made, they would live on because without them, Sigrun Eide would have never been, and would have no more reason to continue being.

She watched the sun go quietly down a hill, as darkness descended. Heard the howls of dying animals and the scuttle of lurking monsters, and went on her way with a knife in one hand and a gun in the other. 

**Author's Note:**

> Probably lots of inconsistencies and grammatical errors, I don't know. Unbeta'd, so please let me know of such aforementioned things.


End file.
